The structure of retrospective accounts of family environments: related to the structure of personality attributes.

Environmental variables are often assumed to constitute a qualitatively different domain from personality variables, and unlike personality variables, their structure is relatively poorly understood. We studied retrospective descriptions of families-of-origin in 3 samples using the items of Moos's (1974) Family Environment Scale (FES). Using cluster-analytic procedures, we generated a new set of 22 homogeneous item clusters for the FES at a level more specific than the 10 conventional FES scales, thus enhancing potential fidelity in the measurement of family environments.